Wenn Neues aufs Land kommt: Entwicklung, Umsetzung und Verbreitung innovativer Lösungen zur digitalen Daseinsvorsorge

Digitalen Lösungen wird großes Potenzial dafür zugeschrieben, die Daseinsvorsorge in schrumpfenden ländlichen Regionen aufrecht zu erhalten. Zugleich werden diesen Räumen aber nachteilige Innovationsbedingungen attestiert, sodass die Realisierung neuartiger Ansätze schwieriger als in den Agglomerationen scheint. In diesem Zusammenhang beleuchtet eine wachsende Zahl an Studien die Praktiken der projektverantwortlichen Akteure vor Ort. Weniger im Fokus stehen hingegen Beziehungen zu überregionalen Schlüsselinstitutionen und Leistungsanbietern sowie die mit ihnen verbundenen Machtrelationen. Angesichts dieses Forschungsbedarfs gehen wir der Frage nach, welche Faktoren die Entwicklung, Umsetzung und Verbreitung neuartiger digitaler Daseinsvorsorgelösungen in ländlichen Regionen beeinflussen. In drei Fallstudien analysieren wir zwei Projekte im Handlungsfeld der medizinischen Versorgung und eines im Bereich der schulischenBildung. Unsere problemzentrierten Interviews und Dokumentenanalysen zeigen entscheidende Einflussfaktoren in den DimensionenMacht, Wissen und Raumund veranschaulichen zugleich, dass in den verschiedenen Phasen des Projektverlaufs jeweils unterschiedliche Faktoren und Akteursbeziehungen bedeutend sind. Neben der Unterstützung durch Schlüsselinstitutionen und Leistungsanbieter ist insbesondere die Akzeptanz lokaler Leistungserbringer dafür ausschlaggebend,dass die digitalen Lösungen wirksam in die Praxis umgesetzt, imAlltag genutzt und gegebenenfalls in andere Regionen übertragen werden.For maintaining basic service provision in shrinking rural areas, great potential is attributed to digital solutions. At the same time, however, disadvantageous conditions for innovations are attested to such spaces, so that the realisation of novel approaches seems to be difficult, compared to agglomerations. In this context, a growing body of research examines the practice of those actors, who are responsible for local projects. In contrast, a much weaker focus lays on relationships with supra-regional key institutions and service providers, as well as on the related power structures. Given that need for research, we go further into the question which factors are influencing the development, implementation and diffusion of innovative and digital solutions for rural basic service provision. Our research is based on three regional case studies, two of them in the field of public health and one in the field of schooling. Our problem-centred interviews and documentary research show key drivers in the dimensions of power, knowledge and space. Furthermore, we demonstrate a varying importance of key drivers and actor relations, dependent on the project phase. Besides the support of key institutions and mayor suppliers, the acceptance through local basic service providers is a decisive factor for effective implementation, everyday usage and potential special diffusion of the analysed digital solutions

Pole-to-Pole Connections : Similarities between Arctic and Antarctic Microbiomes and Their Vulnerability to Environmental Change

Acknowledgments JK acknowledges the Carl Zeiss foundation for PhD funding, the Marie-Curie COFUND-BEIPD PostDoc fellowship for PostDoc funding, FNRS travel funding and the logistical and financial support by UNIS. JK and FK acknowledge the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Antarctic Funding Initiative AFI-CGS-70 (collaborative gearing scheme) and logistic support from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) for field work in Antarctica. JK and CZ acknowledge the Excellence Initiative at the University of Tübingen funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the German Research Foundation (DFG). FH, AV, and PB received funding from MetaHIT (HEALTH-F4-2007-201052), Microbios (ERC-AdG-502 669830) and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). We thank members of the Bork group at EMBL for helpful discussions. We acknowledge the EMBL Genomics Core Facility for sequencing support and Y. P. Yuan and the EMBL Information Technology Core Facility for support with high-performance computing and EMBL for financial support. PC is supported by NERC core funding to the BAS “Biodiversity, Evolution and Adaptation” Team. MB was funded by Helge Ax:son Johnsons Stiftelse and PUT1317. DRD acknowledges the DFG funded project DI698/18-1 Dietrich and the Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme Fellowship (PIRSES-GA-2011-295223). Operations in the Canadian High Arctic were supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), ArcticNet and the Polar Continental Shelf Program (PCSP). We are also grateful to the TOTAL Foundation (Paris) and the UK NERC (WP 4.3 of Oceans 2025 core funding to FCK at the Scottish Association for Marine Science) for funding the expedition to Baffin Island and within this context Olivier Dargent and Dr. Pieter van West for sample collection, and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology through project LIMNOPOLAR (POL200606635 and CGL2005-06549-C02-01/ANT to AQ as well as CGL2005-06549-C02-02/ANT to AC, the last of these co-financed by European FEDER funds). We are grateful for funding from the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland), funded by the Scottish Funding Council (HR09011) and contributing institutions. Supplementary Material The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2017.00137/full#supplementary-materialPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Association of insularity and body condition to cloacal bacteria prevalence in a small shorebird

Do islands harbour less diverse disease communities than mainland? The island biogeography theory predicts more diverse communities on mainland than on islands due to more niches, more diverse habitats and availability of greater range of hosts. We compared bacteria prevalences ofCampylobacter,ChlamydiaandSalmonellain cloacal samples of a small shorebird, the Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) between two island populations of Macaronesia and two mainland locations in the Iberian Peninsula. Bacteria were found in all populations but, contrary to the expectations, prevalences did not differ between islands and mainland. Females had higher prevalences than males forSalmonellaand when three bacteria genera were pooled together. Bacteria infection was unrelated to bird's body condition but females from mainland were heavier than males and birds from mainland were heavier than those from islands. Abiotic variables consistent throughout breeding sites, like high salinity that is known to inhibit bacteria growth, could explain the lack of differences in the bacteria prevalence between areas. We argue about the possible drivers and implications of sex differences in bacteria prevalence in Kentish plovers

Diversity of toxin and non-toxin containing cyanobacterial mats of meltwater ponds on the Antarctic Peninsula: a pyrosequencing approach

Despite their pivotal role as primary producers, there is little information as to the diversity and physiology of cyanobacteria in the meltwater ecosystems of polar regions. Thirty cyanobacterial mats from Adelaide Island, Antarctica were investigated using 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing and automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis, and screened for cyanobacterial toxins using molecular and chemical approaches. A total of 274 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were detected. The richness ranged between 8 and 33 cyanobacterial OTUs per sample, reflecting a high mat diversity. Leptolyngbya and Phormidium (c. 55% and 37% of the OTUs per mat) were dominant. Cyanobacterial community composition was similar between mats, particularly those obtained from closely adjacent locations. The cyanotoxin microcystin was detected in 26 of 27 mats (10–300 ng g-1 organic mass), while cylindrospermopsin, detected for the first time in Antarctica, was present in 21 of 30 mats (2–156 ng g-1 organic mass). The latter was confirmed via liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry and by the presence of the cyrAB and cyrJ genes. This study demonstrates the usefulness of pyrosequencing for characterizing diverse cyanobacterial communities, and confirms that cyanobacteria from extreme environments produce a similar range of cyanotoxins as their temperate counterparts

Practicability of Enteritis – prevention in Trekking and Mountaineering at High Altitude by Systematic Hand Disinfection

Introduction: The hygienic conditions during trekking or mountaineering at high altitudes are reduced, especially regarding defecation and hand hygiene. An additional problem exists in regions above the snowline, especially in highly frequented regions: snow may be contaminated by faecal microbes, causing diarrhea. Prevention against faecal-oral infections must include not only disinfection of drinking water, but hand disinfection, too, e.g. by a water-free hand gel. The practicability of this measure was tested during a Himalaya expedition on the way to Mt. Everest. Material and methods: 10 participants were instructed to use Stokosept-Gel, an alcohol based skin disinfectant, at least prior to meals, after using a toilet and after handling boot-laces and to note each use (including additional occasions). Results: A very good practicability of using the hand gel, which was absorbed quickly (ca. ¼ min) was reported. 100 ml were sufficient for at least 2 weeks and there were no side effects or problems at the skin. During the mountaineering phase which included a total of 250 person days in the field no diarrhea occurred. Conclusion: We conclude that using such hand gels is – additional to other procedures – a very practical prevention against diarrhea in mountaineering at high altitude

The 1.78-kb insertion in the 3'-untranslated region of RXFP2 does not segregate with horn status in sheep breeds with variable horn status

Background: The mode of inheritance of horn status in sheep is far more complex than a superficial analysis might suggest. Observations, which were mostly based on crossbreeding experiments, indicated that the allele that results in horns is dominant in males and recessive in females, and some authors even speculated about the involvement of more than two alleles. However, all recent genome-wide association analyses point towards a very strong effect of a single autosomal locus on ovine chromosome 10, which was narrowed down to a putatively causal insertion polymorphism in the 3'-untranslated region of the relaxin/insulin-like family peptide receptor 2 gene (RXFP2). The main objective of this study was to test this insertion polymorphism as the causal mutation in diverse sheep breeds, including breeds with a variable and/or sex-dependent horn status. Results: After re-sequencing a region of about 246 kb that covered the RFXP2 gene and its flanking regions for 24 sheep from six completely horned and six completely polled breeds, we identified the same insertion polymorphism that was previously published as segregating with horn status in these breeds. Multiplex PCR genotyping of 489 sheep from 34 breeds and some crosses between sheep breeds showed a nearly perfect segregation of the insertion polymorphism with horn status in sheep breeds of Central and Western European origin. In these breeds and their crossings, heterozygous males were horned and heterozygous females were polled. However, this segregation pattern was not, or at least not completely, reproducible in breeds with sex-dependent and/or variable horn status, especially in sheep that originated from even more southern European regions and from Africa. In such breeds, we observed almost all possible combinations of genotype, sex and horn status phenotype. Conclusions: The 1.78-kb insertion polymorphism in the 3'-untranslated region of RXFP2 and SNPs in the 3'-UTR, exon 14 and intron 11 of this gene that we analyzed in this study cannot be considered as the only cause of polledness in sheep and are not useful as a universal marker to define the genetic horn status in sheep